List of made-for-television films with LGBT characters

This is a list of live action made-for-television films that feature lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender characters. Non-binary, pansexual, and asexual characters are also included. The orientation can be portrayed on-screen, described in the dialogue or mentioned.

1950s

Year	Title	Network	Characters	Actors	Notes
1959	South	ITV	Jan Wicziewsky	Peter Wyngarde	Wicziewsky is a Polish army officer living in exile in the antebellum South. He is torn by his feelings for fellow officer Eric MacClure (Graydon Gould). South is believed to be the earliest television film dealing with homosexual themes.[1][2]

1970s

Year	Title	Network	Characters	Actors	Notes
1972	That Certain Summer	ABC	Doug Salter Gary McClain	Hal Holbrook Martin Sheen	A teenager deals with the knowledge that his divorced father is gay.
1974	Born Innocent	NBC	Moco	Nora Heflin	In a controversial scene, Christine Parker (Linda Blair) is raped with a plunger handle by a girl gang led by Moco in a juvenile detention center.
1975	The Naked Civil Servant	ITV (Thames)	Quentin Crisp	John Hurt
1975	Cage Without a Key	NBC	Tommy	Jonelle Allen	Tommy has been described by gay media researcher Steven Capsuto as probably the earliest well-developed gay teen character on television, as well as the first well-developed non-white gay character.
1976	Song of Myself	CBS	Walt Whitman Peter Doyle	Rip Torn Brad Davis
1976	The War Widow	PBS	Amy Jenny	Pamela Bellwood Frances Lee McCain	Set during World War I, Amy is married to a man that enlisted early. On a trip to New York City, she meets Jenny, a photographer. Their friendship blossoms into romance and they become lovers.[3]
1977	Alexander: The Other Side of Dawn	ABC	Alexander Duncan	Leigh McCloskey	Sequel to the TV movie Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway. Alexander becomes a hustler in Los Angeles.
1977	In the Glitter Palace	NBC	Ellen Lange Casey Walker Daisy Dolon Ricky Grace Mayo Kendis Winslow	Barbara Hershey Diana Scarwid Carole Cook Lynn Marta Tisha Sterling Salome Jens	Ellen, a lesbian, hires her ex-boyfriend to defend her lover Casey, who is accused of murder. Daisy is lesbian and a nightclub entertainer. Ricky is lesbian and hiding a child she lost in a custody suit. Grace is a lesbian. She was hired to seduce women so they can be blackmailed. Kendis, a judge, is a lesbian and another blackmail victim.[4][5]
1977	Terraces	NBC	Dr. Roger Cabe Alex Bengston	Lloyd Bochner James Phipps	A married doctor has a sweet, heartfelt affair with a younger man. When the doctor breaks it off for the sake of his wife and family, his young lover cannot cope and takes drastic measures.
1978	A Question of Love	ABC	Linda Ray Guettner Barbara Moreland	Gena Rowlands Jane Alexander	Linda and Barbara are a couple. Based on the true story of Mary Jo Risher, who in 1975 lost custody of her adopted 9‐year‐old son because she was a lesbian.[5][6]

1980s

Year	Title	Network	Characters	Actors	Notes
1981	Sidney Shorr: A Girl's Best Friend	NBC	Sidney Shorr	Tony Randall	Pilot film for the series Love, Sidney.
1983	Making of a Male Model	ABC	Chuck Lanyard	Jeff Conaway
1983	An Englishman Abroad	BBC	Guy Burgess	Alan Bates	Story of the chance encounter between gay "Cambridge spy" Burgess and actress Coral Browne.
1985	An Early Frost	NBC	Michael Pierson Peter Hilton	Aidan Quinn D. W. Moffett	One of the first mainstream treatments of AIDS on American television.
1985	Consenting Adult	ABC	Jeff Lynd	Barry Tubb	TV movie about a family's struggle to accept their son's homosexuality. Based on a novel by Laura Z. Hobson, and also starring Marlo Thomas and Martin Sheen as the parents.
1986	Second Serve	CBS	Renée Richards	Vanessa Redgrave	Biopic of transgender surgeon turned professional tennis player, whose player status was challenged in 1976 when it was revealed that she was transgender.
1986	Welcome Home, Bobby	CBS	Bobby Cavalero	Timothy Williams	TV movie about a gay teenager who struggles with rejection from his school friends and his father when his sexuality becomes known.
1986	The Truth About Alex	HBO	Alex Prager	Peter Spence	After school special-style drama.
1986	My Two Loves	ABC	Gail Springer Marjorie	Mariette Hartley Lynn Redgrave	After her husband dies, Gail finds a job as a chef for a company, where she meets Marjorie, an executive who is open about her being a lesbian. Their friendship becomes a love affair. The script was co-written by Rita Mae Brown.[7][5]
1987	Two of Us	BBC	Matthew Phil	Jason Rush Lee Whitlock

1990s

Year	Title	Network	Characters	Actors	Notes
1990	102 Boulevard Haussmann	BBC	Marcel Proust Amable Massis	Alan Bates Paul Rhys	A 1990 film in the BBC series Screen Two written by Alan Bennett; love story about Marcel Proust and violist Amable Massis.
1991	Our Sons	ABC	James Grant Donald Barnes	Hugh Grant Željko Ivanek	Drama about two mothers (Julie Andrews and Ann-Margret) whose sons are in a relationship, but one of them is terminally ill.
1991	The Lost Language of Cranes	BBC PBS	Owen Benjamin Philip Benjamin Elliot Abrahams Geoffrey Lane Derek Moulthorpe Robin Bradley	Brian Cox Angus MacFadyen Corey Parker René Auberjonois John Schlesinger Ben Daniels	British production based upon the novel by American writer David Leavitt about a young man who comes out to his family, which leads his middle-aged father to face his own hidden sexuality.
1992	Doing Time on Maple Drive	Fox	Matt Carter Kyle	William McNamara Bennett Cale	Family drama.
1992	Citizen Cohn	HBO	Roy Cohn	James Woods	Story of the life of Joseph McCarthy's controversial chief counsel Roy Cohn.
1994	Family Album	NBC	Lionel Thayer Paul Steel John	Joe Flanigan Paul Satterfield Joel Gretsch	Based on Danielle Steel's novel.
1994	Roommates	NBC	Bill Thomas	Eric Stoltz
1994	X-Rated	CBC	Nathan Jones	Billy Merasty	Pilot for the CBC drama series Liberty Street.
1995	The Price of Love	Fox	Bo	Jay R. Ferguson	16-year-old Bret (Peter Facinelli) is thrown out of his house. He runs away to Los Angeles, where he meets a hustler named Bo and becomes a hustler himself. Bo is gay, but Bret is strictly gay-for-pay.
1995	Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story	NBC	Margarethe Cammermeyer Diane	Glenn Close Judy Davis
1995	A Village Affair	ITV	Clodagh Unwin Alice Jordan	Kerry Fox Sophie Ward	Alice moves to the village of Pitcombe with her husband and their two daughters. There she meets Clodagh, a lesbian, and finds herself romantically and sexually attracted to her. The two have an affair.
1997	Any Mother's Son	Lifetime	Allen R. Schindler, Jr.	Paul Popowich	Based on a true story of a hate crime.
1997	In the Gloaming	HBO	Danny	Robert Sean Leonard
1997	The Twilight of the Golds	Showtime	David Gold	Brendan Fraser
1998	Gia	HBO	Gia Carangi Linda	Angelina Jolie Elizabeth Mitchell	Biopic about the lesbian supermodel and heroin addict, who died from an AIDS-related illness in 1986.[8][9]
1999	Execution of Justice	Showtime	Harvey Milk	Peter Coyote	Adaptation of the stage play about the assassination of Milk by Dan White.

2000s

Year	Title	Network	Characters	Actors	Notes
2000	Common Ground	Showtime	Dorothy Nelson Billy, McPherson Gil Roberts Tobias Amos Andy	Brittany Murphy Jason Priestley Mimi Rogers Steven Weber Jonathan Taylor Thomas James LeGros Andrew Airlie	Three short stories dealing with acceptance of gays and lesbians over three different decades.
2000	If These Walls Could Talk 2	HBO	Edith Tree Abby Hedley Linda Amy Fran Kal	Vanessa Redgrave Marian Seldes Michelle Williams Chloë Sevigny Sharon Stone Ellen DeGeneres	Three short stories dealing with lesbian women.
2000	The Truth About Jane	Lifetime	Jane Taylor Ms. Lynn Walcott Jimmy	Ellen Muth Alicia Lagano Kelly Rowan RuPaul
2000	Anatomy of a Hate Crime	MTV	Matthew Shepard	Cy Carter	First of three TV movies about Shepard's murder.
2001	What Makes a Family	Lifetime	Janine Neilssen Sandy Cataldi	Brooke Shields Cherry Jones	When Sandy dies, Janine must fight to keep the child Sandy bore through artificial insemination.[10] The teleplay is based on the true story of Janine Ratcliffe, who in 1989 won custody of the daughter of her deceased lesbian partner, Joan Pearlman.
2002	Bobbie's Girl	Showtime	Bailey Lewis Roberta Langham	Bernadette Peters Rachel Ward	Shows committed relationship between two lesbians.
2002	The Matthew Shepard Story	Showtime	Matthew Shepard	Shane Meier
2002	No Night is Too Long	BBC Two	Tim Cornish Ivo Steadman Thierry Massin	Lee Williams Marc Warren Salvatore Antonio	Tim is bisexual.
2003	Murad	Indus TV	Saima Bobo Naddo	Sohail Asghar Qazi Wajid Nabeel Zafar	Murad a.k.a. Eunuch's Motherhood is a part of the Maa Aur Mamta TV series of films based on Mothers.
2003	Normal	HBO	Ruth	Tom Wilkinson
2003	Soldier's Girl	Showtime	Calpernia Addams	Lee Pace
2003	An Unexpected Love	Lifetime	Kate Mayer McNally 'Mac' Hays	Leslie Hope Wendy Crewson	Kate's tepid marriage to Jack has made both of them unhappy for a long time and she asks for a separation. She has been a housewife and mother, and with no work experience encounters difficulty in finding a job, until she is hired by Mac as a receptionist in her real estate office. A friendship begins to grow between them and Kate finds out that Mac is an out lesbian. As time passes, Kate develops an attraction for Mac, which is reciprocated, and they fall in love.[11][12][13]
2004	Jack	Showtime	Paul	Ron Silver
2004	Prom Queen: The Marc Hall Story	CTV	Marc Hall Jason	Aaron Ashmore Mak Fyfe
2005	Deadly Skies	here!	Donovan Mark	Antonio Sabato, Jr. Michael Boisvert	Film was released in multiple versions, with and without gay content.
2005	Tides of War	here!	Cmdr. Frank Habley Lt. Cmdr. Tom Palatonio	Adrian Paul Mike Doyle	Film was released in multiple versions, with and without gay content.
2006	Trapped!	here!	Samantha Dana	Alexandra Paul Michelle Wolff
2006	Wedding Wars	A&E	Shel Grandy Ted Moore	John Stamos Sean Maher	Shel is a wedding planner and goes on strike for gay rights while planning his straight brother's wedding. Ted is his lover.
2006	Totally Awesome	VH1	Yamagashi	James Hong	Parody of Miyagi from the Karate Kid films, Yamagashi is an elderly gay lecher.
2006	A Girl Like Me: The Gwen Araujo Story	Lifetime	Gwen Araujo	J. D. Pardo
2007	Battlestar Galactica: Razor	Sci Fi Channel	Helena Cain Gina Inviere	Michelle Forbes Tricia Helfer
2007	Daphne	BBC	Daphne du Maurier	Geraldine Somerville	Author du Maurier attempts to pursue her friend, Ellen Doubleday, in a case of unrequited love, and has a secret love affair with Gertrude Lawrence.[14]
2008	Ice Blues	here!	Donald Strachey Timothy Callahan Kenny Kwon	Chad Allen Sebastian Spence Nelson Wong	Part of a series of films based on the Donald Strachey books.
2008	Kiss Me Deadly	here!	Jacob "Jake" Keane Paulo Jillian	Robert Gant	Jake Keane is an ex-spy drawn back into danger when his former partner turns up with her memory erased. Paulo is his lover and Jillian a friend with whom Jake has a daughter.
2008	Knight Rider	NBC	Carrie Ruvai	Sydney Tamiia Poitier	Pilot for the revival of the Knight Rider franchise.
2009	Prayers for Bobby	Lifetime	Bobby Griffith Rev. Whitsell David	Ryan Kelley Dan Butler Scott Bailey

2010s

Year	Title	Network	Characters	Actors	Notes
2010	The Counterfeiters (Les Faux-monnayeurs)	France 2	Edouard Olivier	Melvil Poupaud Maxime Berger	Based on the novel The Counterfeiters by André Gide.
2010	Worried About the Boy	BBC Two	Boy George Jon Moss	Douglas Booth Mathew Horne	Based on the life of Boy George and the formation of Culture Club.
2010	The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister	BBC Two BBC HD	Maxine Peake Anna Madeley Christine Bottomley	Anne Lister Mariana Belcombe Ann Walker	Based on the deciphered diaries of Anne Lister, who lived an open lesbian lifestyle in 19th century Yorkshire. Lister was nicknamed "Gentleman Jack" by the local townspeople.
2011	Christopher and His Kind	BBC Two	Christopher Isherwood Heinz Neddermayer W. H. Auden Gerald Hamilton	Matt Smith Douglas Booth Pip Carter Toby Jones	Based on Isherwood's memoir of the same name.
2011	Cinema Verite	HBO	Lance Loud Candy Darling Jackie Curtis	Thomas Dekker Willem Belli Kyle Riabko	Dramatization of the making of the early reality television series An American Family.[15]
2011	À la recherche du temps perdu	France 2	Baron de Charlus Jupien Robert de Saint-Loup Charles Morel	Didier Sandre Michel Fau Andy Gillet Vincent Heden	Based on the novel In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust.
2011	Steven Niles' Remains	Chiller	Jensen	Miko Hughes	Adaptation of the comic series of the same name.[16]
2013	Behind the Candelabra	HBO	Liberace Scott Thorson Billy Leatherwood	Michael Douglas Matt Damon Cheyenne Jackson	[17]
2014	The Normal Heart	HBO	Alexander "Ned" Weeks Felix Turner Dr. Emma Brookner	Mark Ruffalo Matt Bomer Julia Roberts	Teleplay by Larry Kramer, based on his play of the same name.
2015	Bessie	HBO	Bessie Smith	Queen Latifah	Bessie is a bisexual woman known as "Empress of the Blues."[18]
2016	Mother, May I Sleep With Danger?	Lifetime	Leah Pearl	Leila George Emily Meade	Leah is in love with Pearl, a lesbian vampire. The film is a re-imagining of the similarly-titled 1996 television movie.[19]
2018	Agatha and the Truth of Murder	Channel 5	Mabel Rogers	Pippa Haywood	Rogers convinces Agatha Christie into helping her find out who killed her long-term partner, Florence Nightingale Shore. The film is an alternative history story about the real-life disappearance of Christie in 1926, and includes the real crime which remains unsolved.[20][21]
2018	I Am Jonas	Arte Netflix	Jonas Nathan	Félix Maritaud / Nicolas Bauwens Tommy-Lee Baïk	Jonas is gay. The original French film title is Jonas.[22][23]
2019	One Red Nose Day and a Wedding	BBC One BBC Two	Miranda Faith	Lily James Alicia Vikander	Miranda and Faith marry in this "25 years later" short film sequel to 1994's Four Weddings and a Funeral, produced for the 2019 Comic Relief telethon.[24]
2019	Deadwood: The Movie	HBO	Calamity Jane / Martha Jane Canary Joanie Stubbs	Robin Weigert Kim Dickens	Calamity is lesbian and in love with Joanie. Joanie is lesbian and a hostess at a brothel. They rekindle their romance, which first began in the television series the movie is based on, Deadwood.[25][26][27]
2019	Trapped: The Alex Cooper Story	Lifetime	Alex Cooper Frankie Jason	Addison Holley Nicolette Pearse Stephen Joffe	Alex, raised by conservative Mormon parents in Southern California, is 15 years old when she meets Frankie, an 18-year-old out lesbian. Their mutual attraction becomes romantic. When Alex returns home after spending the night with Frankie, and her worried parents think she had sex with a boy, Alex comes out to them. To "cure" her homosexuality, her parents trick Alex and leave her in the custody of a Mormon couple in Utah to undergo anti-gay conversion therapy. She spends eight months under their cruel authority before she is finally able to escape and find help.[28][29][30] Jason is a gay classmate of Alex in a Utah high school. Together with a sympathetic teacher in charge of the local gay–straight alliance, he helps Alex find an attorney to extricate her. The film is based on the 2016 memoir, Saving Alex: When I Was Fifteen I Told My Mormon Parents I Was Gay, and That's When My Nightmare Began.[31]

2020s

Year	Title	Network	Characters	Actors	Notes
2020	The Thing About Harry	Freeform	Sam Baselli Harry Turpin	Jake Borelli Niko Terho	Sam is gay. Harry told Sam that he is pansexual.

See also

• List of LGBT characters in television and radio
• List of animated series with LGBT characters
• List of comedy television series with LGBT characters
• List of dramatic television series with LGBT characters: 1970s–2000s
• List of dramatic television series with LGBT characters: 2010s
• List of dramatic television series with LGBT characters: 2020s
• List of reality television programs with LGBT cast members
• List of soap operas with LGBT characters
• List of television series with bisexual characters
• Television works about intersex
• List of fictional asexual characters
• List of fictional non-binary characters
• List of fictional pansexual characters

References

1. Festival gem: South
2. Newly unearthed ITV play could be first ever gay television drama
3. "TV: Fine Drama About Lesbians". The New York Times. October 28, 1976. Retrieved 26 February 2019.
4. O'Connor, John J. (February 25, 1977). "TV Weekend". The New York Times. Retrieved 26 February 2019.
5. Tropiano, Stephen (2002). The Prime Time Closet: A History of Gays and Lesbians on TV. Applause Theatre & Cinema Books. ISBN 978-1557835574.
6. O'Malley, Sheila (November 23, 2015). "Gena Rowlands: A Life on Film". Balder and Dash. RogerEbert.com. Retrieved 26 February 2019.
7. O'Connor, John J. (April 7, 1986). "'My Two Loves,' ABC Movie at 9". The New York Times. Retrieved 26 February 2019.
8. Carolin, Louise (2007). "Gia – the tragedy of a lesbian supermodel". Diva. Archived from the original on 2007-03-25.
9. Lo, Malinda (December 13, 2005). "Back in the Day: Out on the Catwalk". AfterEllen. Archived from the original on 2010-04-13.
10. Wertheimer, Ron (January 22, 2001). "TELEVISION REVIEW; In This Fight Over Custody, Parents Loved Each Other". The New York Times. Retrieved 26 February 2019.
11. Elber, Lynn (March 18, 2003). "'Unexpected Love' Is Twist on Old Story". Midland Reporter-Telegram. Retrieved 20 October 2020.
12. Amazon, Nancy (May 23, 2009). "an unexpected love". Kissing Fingertips. Retrieved 20 October 2020.
13. "An Unexpected Love (2003)". The Movie Scene. 2014. Retrieved 20 October 2020.
14. Thorpe, Vanessa (11 February 2007). "Du Maurier's lesbian loves on film". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 July 2020.
15. "Diane Lane, Tim Robbins and James Gandolfini Star in HBO Films' 'Cinema Verite,' A Dramatic Look at the Making of the Groundbreaking Documentary 'An American Family' Debuting in April". The Futon Critic. Retrieved January 12, 2011.
16. Review: "Steve Niles' Remains" Is Your Typical Zombie Apocalypse ... With One Twist
17. Dominguez, Robert (September 16, 2009). "Michael Douglas signs on to play Liberace in new biopic - and playing his lover will be ..." NY Daily News. Retrieved June 1, 2013.
18. Editorial Team (June 16, 2020). "SCREEN: Five of the best real life lez/bi women on screen". Diva. Archived from the original on June 21, 2020. Retrieved June 30, 2020.
19. Holmes, Linda (June 17, 2016). "Lifetime's TV Movie Remake Is One Bad 'Mother May I Sleep With Danger'". NPR. Retrieved 26 February 2019.
20. "Agatha and the Truth of Murder" (PDF). Feature Film Catalogue. Kew Media Distribution. p. 5.
21. "Agatha and the Truth of Murder". LezWatch.TV.
22. Grassin, Sophie (22 November 2018). "Christophe Charrier : " Jonas est un conte pop sur la lâcheté humaine "". L'Obs (in French).
23. Serba, John (March 11, 2020). "Stream It Or Skip It: 'I Am Jonas' on Netflix, an Understated French Drama About a Gay Man's Troubled Life". Decider.com.
24. "One Red Nose Day and a Wedding". BBC. 15 March 2019.
25. Porter, Rick (May 31, 2019). "'Deadwood': 5 Key Takeaways From the Long-Awaited HBO Movie". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 3 June 2019.
26. Berman, Judy (May 30, 2019). "If You Want to Know Why Deadwood Is a Classic, Look to Its Women". Time. Retrieved 3 June 2019.
27. Schaefer, Sandy (June 1, 2019). "HBO's Deadwood: The Movie Ending Explained". Screen Rant. Retrieved 3 June 2019.
28. "Trapped: The Alex Cooper Story". Lifetime. 2019.
29. Ferber, Lawrence (September 27, 2019). "Alex Cooper Survived Conversion Therapy. Now Her Incredible Story Is a Movie". NewNowNext.
30. Henderson, Taylor (September 25, 2019). "Religion Enables Abuse in Lifetime's New Conversion Therapy Movie". Pride.com.
31. Cooper, Alex; Brooks, Joanna (2016). Saving Alex: When I Was Fifteen I Told My Mormon Parents I Was Gay, and That's When My Nightmare Began. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0062374608.